Can it be done already? (when its time to stop buying groceries)

I feel like I was just going along normally, and all of a sudden everything became a panic about final exams. How can the end pounce on me so suddenly? So many tests and review guides to create, grades to hand out, old homework to hand back, last meetings with people who are living, attempts to clean up the apartment.

I think my least favorite time in life is the period where it is not worth buying new groceries, as you will be leaving, and you have to creatively use or throw away the perishable goods that you have. The first moment you realize "oh man I have to start using this stuff up", then you know the end (or at least some end) is upon you. Goodbyes, graduations, appreciation dinners, special lectures, no time to appreciate the suddenly gorgeous breezes, as the Siberian winter has slid away into a sticky continental summer.

Will I use the summer well? I hope so! I want to apply to schools and scholarships, to start writing a book maybe, to work hard on Korean, to visit friends and supporters; we'll see how all that pans out.  Whatever happened to the well-rounded, jack-of-all-trades idea man? The capitalist economy doesn't exactly select for people who spend their days pondering about the flaws of Plantegenet England, the mysteries of Korean morphophonology, what exactly Jesus was trying to say with the parable of the day-laborers, what implications quantum mechanics has for postmodern theology, etc.... Oh well, I know Jesus loves me anyway, even if I'm not exactly cut out to be a cog in the great Capitalist machine.

In the meantime, I'll be staring out the window trying to extracate myself from a stack of  files.

Irritations

So next week is the last week of classes, and no joke, LAST NIGHT, i got an email saying that the Chinese government university which runs some of the required classes for YUST students, just CANCELLED our last week of classes!!??? This is the most retarded thing ever. You teachers out there know that- how you can just cancel the last week of classes? The chinese government is SO inefficient about some things. For instance, for the thesis students which I had this semester, i was given forms 2 weeks ago, that were supposed to be filled out retroactively, in triplicate for each student for the entire semester. For each 12 page thesis, 20 pages of detailed forms had to be filled out. I swear it took me longer to check and double check all the paperwork, which of course was written in Chinese, than it took for the students to actually COMPOSE the thesis. And the maddening thing is- it doesn't matter anyway... Noone will read those comments. Noone can read the English anyway, let alone in my handwriting. It just has to be all done so that it LOOKS official, without having any substance. In many ways this country is like that. It doesn't matter what something actually IS, as long as it LOOKS good.

These little frustrations happen every day here. This is a country lurching forward into some kind of a chaotic restructuring, so quickly, that it has no time to catch up with itself. It does get quite frustrating, knowing that nothing at all is known in advance.

Listen to me- I sound like some kind of British colonial complaining about the "natives" and how they could use a good dose of 'civilization'. We humans want to change things overnight, especially when we stare right at something that makes no sense, and we know a better way. Still there are two pieces of wisdom I have to remember in those situations...

1) There is always a reason WHY things are the way they are. Something that appears senseless, usually has a historical reason why it developed the way it did. And there maybe some advantage in this system which "makes no sense", that is hidden to the mind of the foreigner. At least understanding WHY can help one be more patient. This is a country where for thousands of years already, people have gotten used to perhaps well-intentioned but non-practical mandates from arbitrary ruling authorities. That doesn't change in just 60 years.

2) There's a line from the movie "Power of One" I sometimes think of. When one character was frustrated with apartheid, his teacher said "history will prove who was right". The young character said "but history takes too long!". To which the teacher replies "You are correct, but it is never kind to those who try to hurry it."

In many ways I feel like the life of a foreign teacher is steeped in this attempt to try to hurry history along. I felt it at LCC, I feel it at YUST, and it is not all bad. But there have been very few revolutions in history that have actually worked or acheived what they set out to do. I hope I am not becoming cynical, but i guess there is a time to bend, as well as a time to stand up for what makes sense.

I have the sinking feeling that these are important lessons for me to be learning now, as I will need them at some point in the future.

Just the kind of thing that G_d likes to do, when you're not looking. He teaches you some kind of good character-building lesson through hardship. Hmmph... Oh well, thats the kind of G_d He is, and I know I'll probably thank Him for it later...